It’s summer time and we are hopping with some fabulous companies in the Summer Road Trip Partner Hop with Spellbinders.

Stampendous Stamps is hopping all three days with some fabulous summer inspiration from the design team and on Wednesday two of our designers will be featured a tutorial with some new Spellbinders products! How fun is that!

Prizes! Spellbinders is having a great giveaway during this hop with three daily winners and one grand prize winner! Check out the details here.

My final project is a Christmas card. I love these little gingerbread men dies. They are just too cute! Read further to see how to use the Spellbinders Die D-Lite Shapeabilities

Here's a quick rundown about working with these dies. There's also a useful video on YouTube by Kazan Clark of the Spellbinders Imagination Team that helped me tremendously.

There are 3 steps to creating a finished Shapeabilities diecut shape. My directions use the Spellbinders Grand Caliber machine.

1. Diecutting: Lay the die near the edge of A Plate with the cutting side face up. Lay a piece of wax paper over the die (very important step!). Lay your cardstock over the wax paper. Place Cutting Plate C over the paper and diecut.

2. Emboss: Remove Cutting Plate C. Remove the negative portion of the diecut paper and leave the rest in place inside the die. Place the rubber mat over the die. Place the Plate B over the rubber mat and crank through the machine.

3. Stencil: Remove the Plate B and rubber mat. Pop out the embossed diecut piece and remove the wax paper. Return the diecut piece to the diecut. Flip it over and lay it on the work surface. You will see the raised (embossed) areas only through the 'stencil.' Now you'll decide how you're going to decorate the raised areas. For both the gingerbread men and candy cane, I colored the raised areas with a Coconut White Uniball Signo Pen and it worked great through the raised areas of the stencil!

It's just a matter of assembling the card beginning with a 5-1/2x4-1/4 inch kraft cardstock panel (A Muse). I dry embossed it using a Dreamweaver Plaid stencil. The red and blue panels were affixed and then edge distressed (Prima Tool) before affixing onto the kraft cardstock with 3M Scotch 1/4" ATG tape. The gingham check May Arts ribbon was tied in a double bow.

The red/white cording (May Arts) was coiled over the red chevron with a few buttons (A Muse) threaded onto the cording. The gingerbread men were mounted over the cording with 3M foam mounting tape. On the right side, a diecut label (my stash) was embossed with Stampendous white embossing powder onto kraft paper (A Muse) and distressed with Vintage Photo ink (Ranger) and held in place with a tiny clothespin (A Muse). The Spellbinders candy cane was mounted onto the tag and a sweet punched heart (Marvy) on glitter paper (craft store) was mounted onto the candy cane. The edges were curled up and Stampendous Encrusted Jewels were heated from underneath to add extra pizzaz.

I hope you enjoyed my Christmas card today! Before you go, I'd love you to leave me a comment. Thanks for stopping by!

It’s summer time and we are hopping with some fabulous companies in the Summer Road Trip Partner Hop with Spellbinders.

Stampendous Stamps is hopping all three days with some fabulous summer inspiration from the design team and on Wednesday two of our designers will be featured a tutorial with some new Spellbinders products! How fun is that!

Prizes! Spellbinders is having a great giveaway during this hop with three daily winners and one grand prize winner! Check out the details here.

There are 3 steps to creating a finished Shapeabilities diecut shape. My directions use the Spellbinders Grand Caliber machine.

1. Diecutting: Lay the die near the edge of Platform A with the cutting side face up. Lay a piece of wax paper over the die. Lay your cardstock over the wax paper. Place Cutting Plate B over the paper and diecut.

2. Emboss: Remove Cutting Plate B. Remove the negative portion of the diecut paper and leave the rest in place inside the die. Place the rubber mat over the die. Place the Embossing Plate over the rubber mat and crank through the machine.

3. Stencil: Remove the Embossing Plate and rubber mat. Pop out the embossed diecut piece and remove the wax paper. Return the diecut piece to the diecut. Flip it over and lay it on the work surface. You will see the raised (embossed) areas only through the 'stencil.' Now you'll decide how you're going to decorate the raised areas. For the Christmas trees, I just used my Quickie Glue Pen and Stampendous Sea Green ultra fine glitter.

For the bottom red border, I dry embossed a piece of Bazill cardstock with the Dreamweaver Chevron Stencil. I used my Sizzix Big Kick and made a 'sandwich' stack as follows: platform with no tabs, stencil, cardstock, rubber mat, 2 cutting plates and cranked it through. I simply followed the chevron pattern to cut the bottom border. Holes were punched with a 1/8" hole punch, tiny jingle bells (A Muse) were inserted onto jump ring and mounted on the tag.

For the body of the tag, I cut Bazill cardstock 3-1/2" x 5-1/2". Stampendous Christmas Wishes Perfectly Clear stamp was inked with Versafine Onyx Black and stamped onto tag. The sweet little holly images that are part of the set were stamped also with Versafine Onyx Black. The leaves were colored with Copic Olive and the berries were colored with Copic Crimson then covered with Quickie Glue Pen and Stampendous Ultra Fine Red Glitter.

The bow was diecut on gold (A Muse) cardstock. I thought it was pretty as is and didn't add any stencil decorating to it. It is mounted with a foam square (Scrapbook Adhesives). Red/White cording (May Arts) was hot glued onto the back side of the tag.

The red Dreamweaver Stencil Chevron panel was affixed to the bottom portion of the green tag with a 3M Scotch ATG 1/4" tape runner. The ric rak (May Arts) was affixed with Scor-Tape (Scor-Pal). Finally, the trees were added with foam squares (Scrapbook Adhesives). For added depth, I distressed the edges with Vintage Photo Distress Ink and a blending tool (Ranger).

Hope you enjoyed my little Christmas tag today! Before you go to the next designer's blog, I'd love you to leave me a comment and thanks for stopping by!

It’s summer time and we are hopping with some fabulous companies in the Summer Road Trip Partner Hop with Spellbinders.

Stampendous Stamps is hopping all three days with some fabulous summer inspiration from the design team and on Wednesday two of our designers will be featured a tutorial with some new Spellbinders products! How fun is that!

Prizes! Spellbinders is having a great giveaway during this hop with three daily winners and one grand prize winner! Check out the details here.

For my project today, I was sent two sets of Spellbinders Shapeabilities holiday dies and boy did I have fun playing! Since I wasn't familiar with this product, I found a great instructional video on YouTube. I also found in my Dreamweaver stash drawer, a stenciled toilet paper roll that was begging to be used for today's project!

There are 12 dies in the Spellbinder Shapeabilities Die D-Lite Christmas Set-2 (SKU: PHS-511) that I chose to work with. Here's a photo of all the darling little dies! I diecut all of them just to see what they looked like cut and embossed and then narrowed down what I wanted to use in my projects this week.http://www.joann.com

Here's a quick rundown about working with these dies. There's also a useful video on YouTube by Kazan Clark of the Spellbinders Imagination Team that helped me tremendously.

There are 3 steps to creating a finished Shapeabilities diecut shape. My directions use the Spellbinders Grand Caliber machine.1. Diecutting: Lay the die near the edge of A Plate with the cutting side face up. Lay a piece of wax paper over the die (very important step!). Lay your cardstock over the wax paper. Place Cutting Plate C over the paper and diecut. 2. Emboss: Remove Cutting Plate C. Remove the negative portion of the diecut paper and leave the rest in place inside the die. Place the rubber mat over the die. Place the Plate B over the rubber mat and crank through the machine.3. Stencil: Remove the Plate B and rubber mat. Pop out the embossed diecut piece and remove the wax paper. Return the diecut piece to the diecut. Flip it over and lay it on the work surface. You will see the raised (embossed) areas only through the 'stencil.' Now you'll decide how you're going to decorate the raised areas.

The Santa hat worked perfectly with the Stampendous Believe sentiment. It was heat embossed with Stampendous Sparkle embossing powder onto chalkboard cardstock (Canvas Corp) then diecut with a Spellbinders die. A 1/8" hole was hole punched and jute/hemp (May Arts) was threaded and tied onto the chevron ribbon (May Arts). Little jingle bells (A Muse) were added for additional whimsy.TIP: To flatten a toilet paper roll, run it through a die cut machine between two cutting plates! Works like a charm. I paste embossed the roll with Dreamweaver Glossy white paste and a Dreamweaver Big Dots stencil and set it aside to dry. I added Gelato white (Faber Castell) to the edges and blended the color with my finger. One end of the roll is sealed with double sided tape (Red Line). White pom poms (May Arts) were added with Score-Tape. For the scalloped border around the top of the toilet paper holder I cut a strip 1/2" x 5" from cardstock (A Muse) and border punched it with a Fiskars punch. It was affixed with Scor-Tape (Scor-Pal).Santa's hat was colored with Copic R29 Crimson. The brim was covered with Quickie Glue Pen and Stampendous Crystal Glitter was sprinkled. Pom pom (A Muse) was rolled in a Palette Stamp & Stick Glue Pad (Stewart Superior), picked up with tweezers and 'dunked' into Stampendous Crystal Glitter and allowed to dry before affixing onto the hat with Beacon Fabri-Tac. It was mounted with a foam square (Scrapbook Adhesives) onto the tag. The tag was threaded with black hemp (May Arts) and tied around the red/white chevron ribbon bow (May Arts). Two small jingle bells (A Muse) were tied at the ends.

Toilet paper holders are a perfect size to hold gift cards! Here's my simple pocket tag that is folded up to create the pocket and a paper 'band' is wrapped around to create the pocket! Two sweet Stampendous Christmas Visions and Christmas Wishes (sneak peeks!) were used to embellish the tag. Copic Crimson and Willow G24 were used to color the holly.

Tag Construction: Cut white cardstock (Neenah Solar White 90#) 2-7/8" x 7." Score at 4-1/2" and fold to create the pocket. Cut a strip of pattern paper (Simple Stories) 1-1/2" x 5" and wrap it around the top edge of the pocket. Affix one end of strip directly onto the tag and the other end of the strip affixes over the strip. I used 3M Scotch ATG 1/4" tape. I also cut a black 1/4" x 5" strip (A Muse) and affixed that at the bottom of the dotted panel.The tag sentiment (Stampendous Christmas Visions Perfectly Clear Set) and holly (Stampendous Christmas Wishes Perfectly Clear Set) are sneaks from the upcoming July Catalog . Leaves were colored with Copic Willow G24 and berries were colored with Wink of Stella GL Red 020 (Zig). The tag was also edged with Wink of Stella GL Red 020.Hope you enjoyed my project today! Before you go to the next designer's blog (just click on the Stampendous Blog link), I'd love you to leave me a comment. Thanks for stopping by!

There's something about this Dreamweaver fairy stencil that has me mesmerized (or possessed!) but maybe because I've always had a thing for paper dolls and she's very much like a little paper doll!

Today's project is an easel card:

I say 'project' because the 'process' changed directions a few times but I'm very happy with the result! The fairy was stenciled with white paste and allowed to dry. I gesso painted it 'cuz I wanted it primed. Next came the giant circle , which originally was going to be a shaker window but working with diecut frames were problematic for me so I stayed with an acetate window that was heat embossed with Stampendous Detail Gold.

Here's the story about the background in the window. It began as a Gelatoed piece and a Dreamweaver stencil was laid over the panel and color was removed with a baby wipe. For some reason, the finished panel didn't a thing for me as the fairy's background even after I added Stampendous crystal glitter with a Quickie Glue Pen. Plan B in place which is the background of the acetate window! Now I liked it!

Here's a look at the panel before I cut it up:

The upper left area is lighter and that's where I added glitter and focused the diecut circle. The result is okay, but it reminded me of Halloween.

All that was left of the top of the easel was to assemble the pieces. The fairy was hot glued onto the acetate window first then the flowers were added and butterfly. Once all that was together, it was hot glued onto the top easel piece.

The bottom of the easel needed finishing so I created a mosaic panel from the leftover scrap of purple trees and it looked like this.

It still needed something so I gold embossed the flourish from the Stampendous Filigree stamp set and that did the trick! To give it more stability, I mounted the piece onto Bazil cardstock that was the same color as the card base. Silk ribbon (May Arts) was tied around the mosaic to fill in the area. 3M foam mounting tape is centered over the entire length of the mosaic piece.

Imagine my delight with this week's theme at Stampendous 'cuz I could use my absolute favorite Dreamweaver Fairy stencil! My project today has many layers, elements and parts to it, but It began with stamping the Stampendous flowers several times onto mixed media paper with Versafine Onyx Black ink and coloring them with Faber-Castell Gelatos and water.

Here's the finished project:

The Dreamweaver fairy was pasted with white paste and set aside to dry. Next, I tackled the inside panel and background. It's pretty much all covered up by the embellishments, but the gist of it was this:

Starting with a gessoed 8-1/2x11 mixed media cardstock, I cut the panel to the specified size. TIP: Spray Krylon Gesso Spray outside (bad fumes!) 'cuz I want that part done fast using my handy-dandy home-made large spray paint box. I was going for soft and dreamy colors of Gelatos and scribbled one color at a time and blended with my finger. I touched the piece with a heat tool in between layers. The next layer was to stamp a Stampendous image that was colored with Gelato and spritzed with water. I love this technique because one Gelato colored image goes a very long way. Unfortunately, you can't really see it in the photo below, but it is the specks of darker color. Finally (my fav part!), I grabbed a baby wipe and a stencil from the Stampendous Filigree set, and wiped into the stencil open areas to remove color! Voila!

Here's a leftover scrap which gives you an idea of the design.

Working on the fairy was next and all coloring was done before I cut her out. I gessoed the fairy using my regular formula with a paint brush as I wanted assurance of true colors. Wings (Peerless Gold), body (Gelatos in a mix of Dreamweaver FX) to get lots of shimmer.

Once the color was dry, then I fussy cut her out and applied an encrusted jewel technique using Stampendous Pink Encrusted Jewels and mounted on the card. TIP: Hold the fairy with tweezers rather a clamp to avoid teeth marks!

Notice the sage fragments in front of the fairy? That is an acrylic piece I cut and hot glued to the fairy. The Stampendous Build A Bouquet Butterfly and flower (Paper Mart) are also affixed to the acrylic. A ribbon (Hug Snug) was tied around the bottom panel to help fill in open space.

No-line watercoloring is the technique I used on the Stampendous Cling PenPattern Giraffe. I love this technique because it gives you the outline of an image to work from. The lines literally disappear while watercoloring because the image is stamped in a water-based dye ink. I used Distress Antique Linen.

Here's my project for today:

Pretty cool, huh? This technique is especially beautiful using flower images. TIP: For further instruction on this technique, go to YouTube and search 'no-line watercoloring' for some great videos. The watercoloring technique I used was Tombows scribbled onto Palette Paper with a spritz of water nearby. I used a slim paint brush rather than an aqua brush as I wanted more control over how much water mixed with the Tombow color. The finished image is blended around the edge with Distress Antique Linen and Vintage Photo.

The stamped image looked like this before I began coloring:

Here's a visual of the Tombows I used for the giraffe, grass and sky background. I referred to my trusty Pinterest and searched 'watercolor giraffes' and found this image to use as a reference.

Once the giraffe was painted, I began the textured background using Faber-Castel Gelatos. I used another piece of Gessoed Stampendous Mixed Media Paper and scribbled a color of Gelato one at a time in order to blend each color with my finger. Once I was satisfied, I dried the panel with a heat tool. For added texture, I dry embossed it using the Dreamweaver Mosaic Swirls Stencil. TIP:When blending out Gelatos with your finger, I found I was leaving fingerprints from holding the paper with my other hand. To alleviate that I used my Palette Paper to hold the down the panel while I was blending and it worked great! No more fingerprints! Try wax paper if you don't have anything else.

Here are the Gelato colors used for the 'jungle' background. My Gelatos don't have the name of each color printed on them, so a visual will have to suffice.

Once again, I went into my trusty pre-colored Dreamweaver scrap drawer and pulled the background piece for the elephant stencil. The paper is glossy and I (believe) I used the 'smoosh' technique where I sprayed 2-3 colors of Memories Mists in Margarita, Orange Juice and Strawberry Daiquiri onto glossy cardstock. I 'smooshed' another piece of glossy cardstock over the first piece and peeled it off to reveal the smoosh!

Once the tangling was done, I wanted to add embellishments (of course!) and I had a previously Gelatoed piece leftover from tomorrow's project consisting of greens which worked beautifully for my Dreamweaver diecut leafy branch and petite ferns. The sentiment from Stampendous Wild Sayings Perfectly Clear Stamp Set was stamped with Versafine Onyx Black onto a scrap from my Dreamweaver drawer. It was diecut with (I believe) a Spellbinders, but I've lost the packaging I've had it so long.

Here's a fun discovery, as I was assembling the card and layering the cardstock panels, I had pulled a painted scrap from my Dreamweaver drawer. It looked a little too plain to me, so I laid the Dreamweaver I-Beams stencil over it wondering if a baby wipe would remove some of the paint. It worked! Happy dance! So now I had my jungle primitive background panel.

One more embellishment to go and that was to grab some rafia and hot glue strands into the corner. Remember, even if you have thick strands of rafia that you glued in place, take a pin (or even small scissors) and run it up the length of rafia to create skinnier strands. Works like a charm! Cut them in various lengths as desired.

Hope you enjoyed my jungle card today! Before you go to the next designer's blog, I'd love you to leave me a comment! See you tomorrow!

This week our team will be showcasing the Art Grip Aquarelles Watercolor Pencils, the PITT Pastel Pencils, and our very special guest Nathalie Kalbach will be featuring the Gelatos! There will be guest-starring roles by the PITT Artist Pens for doodling and drawing!

3 Lucky Winners this week will get three sets of the PITT Pastel Pencils (red/yellow, blue/green, neutrals), a jar of Faber-Castell Chalkboard Paint, and $20 http://www.stampendous.com reward card to choose their favorite images to color! WOW… these winners must have a U.S. mailing address (official rules here!). Click on the Stampendous Blog link for further details. For more great information about Gelatos, go to Designing with Gelatos found on YouTube.

Here's my project for today:

I knew I would be using the Dreamweaver Corner Flowers stencil and Gelatos for this card! The Stampendous mixed media paper was prepared with gesso and allowed to dry. It was then dry embossed using my Sizzix Big Kick and the Corner Flowers stencil.

I scribbled a summery assortment of Gelatos over the embossed paper. Next, a little spritz of water was sprayed over the paper. With my finger, I moved the colors around but not too much as I wanted to still see the individual colors. More Gelato color was added here and there where needed.

Once dry, the Stampendous Birthday Assortment Perfectly Clear sentiment was colored with a Faber-Castell Artist Pitt Pen Big May Green and stamped onto the card. TIP: Here's how to color ribbon to perfectly match a card! My ribbon (May Arts) was originally white. I colored it directly with a salmon colored Gelato and then spritzed with water. I used my fingers to blend the color. You can make the color blend as even or uneven as you desire. I added some lace from my stash just to add a bit more femininity. It was affixed with Beacon Fabri-Tac.

The butterfly is from Stampendous Cling Build a Bouquet Stamp Set and was stamped with Archival Black and colored with Faber-Castell Art Grip Aquarelle pencils. The colors were blended out with water and a fine tip paint brush that came with the set of pencils. A little Stampendous Crystal Glitter was added with a Quickie Glue Pen for additional sparkle. Gold thread from my stash was randomly affixed to the bow with Fabri-Tac. The butterfly was affixed with hot glue.

This week our team will be showcasing the Art Grip Aquarelles Watercolor Pencils, the PITT Pastel Pencils, and our very special guest Nathalie Kalbach will be featuring the Gelatos! There will be guest-starring roles by the PITT Artist Pens for doodling and drawing!

And, since it's Thursday, we're including Dreamweaver Stencil projects today!3 Lucky Winners this week will get three sets of the PITT Pastel Pencils (red/yellow, blue/green, neutrals), a jar of Faber-Castell Chalkboard Paint, and $20 http://www.stampendous.com reward card to choose their favorite images to color! WOW… these winners must have a U.S. mailing address (official rules here!). Find more details on the Stampendous Blog link. Also, I found a wonderful video on YouTube - Designing with Gelatos I recommend watching.

Here's my Stampendous/Faber-Castell/Dreamweaver project for today:

Inside sentiment: doggone-it! I missed your Birthday.

I have been in love with this dog stencil and diecut and was so excited to work with it again for this week's Perfect Pets theme. To begin the project I gessoed my Stampendous mixed media paper for better results when blending Gelatos. Once the gesso was dry, I scribbled various Gelatos onto my paper and blended them with my finger until I was satisfied with the colors.

The next step was the coolest! I took my Dreamweaver Checkerboard Stencil (LJ803) and laid it over the gessoed paper. With a baby wipe, I simply wiped away color through each window of the stencil! The result was like magic and the checked pattern I was going for was really taking shape.

Next, I wanted to stencil a tree over the checked panel. I created 'tree-green' paste simply by shaving bits of Faber-Castell Gelato onto a small blob of white embossing paste. With a palette knife, I worked the Gelatos into the paste until I had a smooth consistency. I still hadn't achieved quite the color I was looking for, so I added a little bit of Dreamweaver Glossy Green embossing paste and that did the trick! I pasted the tree with Dreamweaver Tree of Life Stencil and let it dry. Meanwhile, I pasted the dog with Dreamweaver Matte Black and let that dry.

I wanted to create background paper to make my paper pieced dog whimsical. I chose a small cling stamp out of the Stampendous Regal Bird Stack Art Stamp Kit and scribbled it thoroughly with a Gelato. The colored cling was then spritzed with water and stamped onto Neenah Kraft cardstock. I couldn't believe how many stamped impressions I got out of this Gelatoed stamp! I spritzed it each time before stamping with it. The Dreamweaver diecut dog was put through my Sizzix Big Kick. All that was left was to edge each piece with Distress Vintage Photo prior to affixing to the stenciled dog that had been fussy cut. To affix the tiny little pieces, I spread my Quickie Glue Pen directly onto the stencil. With tweezers, I picked up one piece at a time and affixed to the stenciled dog. A googlie eye was affixed for even more whimsie. The dog is affixed to the card with foam squares by Scrapbook Adhesives.

By now, I'm hoping you've tried your hand at Doodlie-Doo-in' and find it relaxing and fun! My card today was actually created before the feather tag of yesterday. I hadn't doodled in quite a long time and once I pulled the Zen Butterfly (go figure) scrap out of my Dreamweaver drawer, I was immediately inspired. It was in my scrap drawer not because I was discarding it, but because it was meant to come back to later.

Here's my little Doodlie-Doo for you today:

The Dreamweaver Zen Butterfly was originally a monoprint, which is similar to the letterpress technique without dry embossing it through a diecut machine. The print was made with Memories Mists Mango Lemonade and was the perfect starting piece for this project! The Zen butterfly stencil was laid in place and taped at the top with removable tape (3M). I used the Faber-Castell Artist Pitt Pen (XS) to outline the butterfly and then removed the stencil in order to fill in with doodles/tangles. Since I don't tangle very often, it's quite the challenge to look at a blank butterfly and imagine how to add designs!!! I just started on one side of the top wing and it grew from there. Pinterest was my go-to reference for ideas.